At this year's Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) in Kyoto, our research group was again represented with a large delegation of experienced and young researchers. TheGECCO Conference is one of the most important and prestigious conferences for the latest high-quality results in genetic and evolutionary computation since 1999.

We are very proud, that this year four of our contributions were accepted in one of the main tracks!

· Michael Affenzeller held an invited talk about "Data-Based Modeling and Optimization in Industrial Processes" in the "Evolutionary Computation in Practive (ECip)" track organized by Thomas Bartz-Beielstein

​Also some of our former research group members and graduates like Roland Braune (University of Vienna), Stefan Forsterlechner (University of Dublin) or CiprianZavoianu (Johannes Kepler University Linz) are successfully represented at the GECCO Conference.

Around 700 researchers participated at the conference in Kyoto - they made this year's conference the second largest GECCO ever.

Gabriel Kronberger and Stephan Winkler visited the Genetic Programming in Theory and Practice (GPTP) Workshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan (http://gptp-workshop.com/). The workshop is an annual event hosted by the Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan.

Gabriel Kronberger presented our work on "Cluster Analysis of a Symbolic Regression Search Space". Our student, Tom Schmiedlechner, who is currently on a 3-month visit at the ALFA Group (http://alfagroup.csail.mit.edu) led by Una-May O'Reilly, presented their work together with Abdullah Al-Dujaili and Erik Hemberg on "Distributed Coevolutionary Learning in Generative Adversarial Networks"

We would like to congratulate our colleague Michael Kommenda who successfully defended his PhD thesis! Michael is one of our longest researchers and joined HEAL in 2008. He has done his PhD-thesis "Local Optimization and Complexity Control for Symbolic Regression" at the JKU - supervised by FH-Prof. PD DI Dr. Michael Affenzeller and a.Univ.Prof Dr. Josef Küng.

On 2 March, the Josef Ressel Center (JRC) for Symbolic Regression was officially opened in Hagenberg. The subject of the JRC are mathematical models for propulsion systems. Partners of the project are the companies AVL List and Miba and the Federal Ministry for Digital an Economic Affairs funds it.

At the Josef Ressel Center for Symbolic Regression, algorithms for the mathematical modeling of technical systems are being researched and developed. These should lead to improvements in the development and optimization of drives and their components. The JRC is funded with 1.14 million €, whereby the Ministry of Economics and the partner companies AVL List GmbH and Miba Frictec GmbH each carry half of the financing. "Like many other manufacturers, our partners AVL List and Miba Frictec are faced with the challenge that drives and their components, driven by hybridization, electrification and the resulting greater variety of variants, are becoming increasingly complex," explains the head of JRC Gabriel Kronberger. "At the same time, stricter emission standards must be adhered to, even in real driving conditions," continued the FH Upper Austria professor. That is why models and simulations play an increasingly important role in the development, configuration and optimization of drive components. In the new JRC in Hagenberg solution methods for symbolic regression are developed, which - integrated into the software systems of the partner companies - provide real-time models for the mentioned purposes. "The JRC gives us the opportunity to explore completely new approaches to symbolic regression. For industrial applications we need deterministic and efficient solution methods with few parameters," says Kronberger.

As keynote speaker Prof. Bartz-Beielstein was invited. He discussed the topic „Künstliche Intelligenz in industriellen Anwendungen“. Between the research groups HEAL and Prof. Bartz-Beielstein has been an intensive exchange of expertise for more than ten years. He also made a news entry on his homepage about the JRC opening.

The media also reported about the Josef Ressel Center for Symbolic Regression: